


A Handful of Rubies

by yurImperial



Series: Diagnostics [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:33:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10411227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yurImperial/pseuds/yurImperial
Summary: People mistreat each other, but also treat each other kindly. People use weapons like tools, but also cherish them. For an android, these distinctions can seem confusing. How should you expect people to treat you when you are half weapon and half person? How should you treat yourself?





	

Penny watches as Ruby pieces Crescent Rose together one small mechanism at a time. She had spent the past hour dismantling her precious weapon, polishing and oiling every surface with painstaking care. Penny has seen her complete this process much faster before - the girl did build the scythe herself, so she knows its ins and outs intimately. But this level of reverence she displays now puzzles Penny.

She has to admit, it's almost hypnotizing how deftly Ruby's fingers glide over interlocking metal bits, fitting them together, dabbing some grease here, spraying some kind of smelly spray there. She can't think of anything she herself would touch in such a way, how her friend's fingers caress each piece. It makes Penny feel self-conscious, almost like she's watching something she shouldn't. The feeling perplexes her.

Ruby seems to pick up on her state of mind and pauses her ministrations. "What's up?" she says.

"I was just thinking, would it not be a relief to be finished sooner? Or is there a reason you're taking your time?"

Ruby laughs. "Sorry, this is probably boring you..."

"I wouldn't say that," Penny says quickly. "Any time we spend together is enjoyable. I only wish to understand why you treat a tool like a person."

 Ruby nods to herself, bites her lip. She slides the head of her scythe onto the handle and gives it a twist to lock everything in place, completing its reconstruction. Then she rests it in her lap, her fingertips sliding along the flat of the blade in a loving caress, and for a strange moment, Penny feels something akin to jealousy tighten her chest. The emotion passes as soon as she names it and her cheeks heat up in private embarrassment.

"A huntress's weapon is much more than a tool. They protect us. We rely on them as much as we rely on each other, every bit an ally-" Ruby's eyes flicker to Penny's face, then back to Crescent Rose as a small smile touches her lips. "-a friend."

Penny is quiet for a long moment as she processes this new information. Her guards do not touch her this way. General Ironwood does not touch her this way. They all keep their distance, sometimes with guns separating them. Only her father touches her, and that’s when she needs repairs. They treat her like a weapon - a tool - and a dangerous one at that. Isn’t that what she is? When she remembers the hugs, the hand holding, the secret caresses - all and only from Ruby Rose - she is no longer sure of that fact.

At length, Penny says, "So 'weapons' and 'friends'... they mean the same thing to you?" Ruby nods. "I still don't think I understand. Weapons are useful, but they can also cause hurt. I know about the wars mankind has faced..."

Instead of elaborating, Ruby flips Crescent Rose so it sits with the handle pointing straight up, the dangerous end planted on the floor between her thighs. Before Penny can stop her, she closes her hand into a fist and presses the heel of her palm to the cutting edge, sliding it forward along the blade.

Penny's eyes freeze wide, her gaze affixed to the spot where metal kisses flesh.

"Good thing I just cleaned it. This much is perfectly safe," Ruby says in a slightly pinched voice. Despite the reassurance, Penny's hands ball up tightly in the fabric of her skirt.

Once a faint red smear can be seen shining on the blade, Ruby lifts her hand away and inspects the incision with a mild hiss of pain. Unable to hold back her worry any longer, Penny grasps Ruby's wrist and unfolds her friend's hand like peeling back the petals of a flower. An angry-looking slit about an inch long runs parallel to her hand between the outer edge and the thicker flesh at the base of her thumb. The wound has already started weeping.

"Ruby, why?" Penny looks up at her friend, fear and confusion swirling in her eyes.

Ruby tilts her hand forward to let the beads of red pool in her cupped palm like a handful of her namesake gems, glittering in the overhead light.

"This is what it's like to entrust your life," she says cryptically, "To a weapon, and to a friend. Both can and will hurt you sometimes. But the more you practice with them, the more familiar you are with them, the more you trust them - the better they will protect you, and the easier it is to spill your blood for them in turn."

Memories of team RWBY fighting together, working like a cohesive unit, flash through Penny's mind. Yang taking hits to spare the others. Blake opening up opportunities for them to attack. Weiss giving them an edge with her glyphs. Ruby trusting them as she commits everything to an all-out attack. And it clicks.

Red. Blood. Roses. Ruby. Friends. Weapons. Battle. Trust.

Life.

"It smells... familiar." Metallic.

"That's the iron in my blood," Ruby murmurs close. "See? We're made of the same basic things."

Penny looks down at her own hands where, months ago, the skin had peeled back to reveal solid metal after she'd stopped a moving van. She had shed no blood, but she hadn't thought twice about the action when it meant protecting her friend.

A weapon is more than just a tool, huh?

Penny's fingers trace the veins up Ruby's arm, across her chest, to her heart. Ruby watches with a perplexed expression, sitting stock-still as Penny invades her personal space not undesirably. The searching motion soon shifts to an embrace which Ruby reciprocates immediately.

"I'll protect you, Ruby Rose. As a weapon _and_ as a friend."

Ruby laughs, agrees, rubs Penny’s back, and the android squeezes tighter because no one else makes her feel the way Ruby does. That she's normal. That she's special. That she belongs somewhere. That she isn't alone.

That despite not bleeding and not being the best at doing human things, she's still considered to be - at least by one person - human.

And that is a gift more precious than a handful of rubies.


End file.
